Human nature in its fourfold state ... In several practical discourses

Thus the natural man lives, but he must die too; and death is a dreadful messenger to him It comes upon him armed with wrath, and puts three sad charges in his hand (1) Death chargeth him to bid an eternal farewell to all things in this world; to leave it, and make away to another world. Ah! what a dreadful charge must this ⟨p. 101⟩be to a child of wrath! He can have no comfort from heaven; for God is his enemy: and as for the things of the world, and the enjoyment of his lusts, which were the only springs of his comfort; these are in a moment dried up to him for ever. He is not ready for another world: he was not thinking of removing so soon: or if he was, yet he has no portion secured to him in another world, but that which he was born to, and was increasing all his days, namely, a treasure of wrath. But go he must; his clay god, the world, must be parted with, and what has he more? There was never a glimmering of light, or favour from heaven, to his soul: and now the wrath that did hang in the threatening as a cloud like a man's hand, is darkening the face of the whole heaven above him: and if he look unto the earth, (from whence all his light was wont to come) behold trouble and darkness, dirtness of anguish; and he shall be driven to darkness, Isa. viii 22. (2) Death chargeth soul and body to part till the great day▪ His soul is required of him, Luke xii 20. O what a miserable parting must this be to a child of wrath! care was indeed taken to provide for the body things necessary for this life▪ but alas! there is nothing laid up for another life to it; nothing to be a seed of glorious resurrection: as it lived, so it must die, and rise again sinful flesh; fuel for the fire of God's wrath. As for the soul, he was never solicitous to provide for it. It lay in the body, dead to God▪ and all things truly good; and so must be carried out into the pit, in the grave cloths of its natural state: for now that death comes, the companions in sin must part. (3.) Death chargeth the soul to compear before the tribunal of God, while the body lies to be carried to the grave, Eccles. xii. 7. The spirit shall return unto God who gave it. Heb. ix 2, 7. It is appointed unto all men once to die, but after this the judgment. Well were it for the sinful soul if it might be buried together with the body. But that cannot be: it must go and receive its sentence;